


Cycle

by Sleigh



Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Canon Temporary Character Death, First Kiss, M/M, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-08
Updated: 2017-10-08
Packaged: 2019-01-10 14:03:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12300651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sleigh/pseuds/Sleigh
Summary: A first kiss, a goodbye, a reunion.





	Cycle

Chrom’s lips are rough but he kisses gently, hesitantly. The juxtaposition between the gentleness, the tenderness, and Chrom’s calloused fingertips against his cheekbones, the underlying hunger in the movement of his mouth, all of it makes Robin dizzy.

“Chrom.” Robin’s voice is hardly a rasp, a whisper being strangled out of him. He wants Chrom, wants him so bad he feels like he’s being suffocated by the proximity between them, being choked by Chrom’s breath against his lips. It’s worse than any round of wine, squeezes his heart tighter than the most harrowing battle. “We can’t do this. You know that.”

“Why not?” 

The naivety is maddening for half a dozen reasons. Robin thinks he should look away, should step back, should drop his hand from the back of Chrom’s neck. He knows he’s kidding himself by thinking he could force himself to do that. “This-- it’s--” 

Chrom’s eyes are searching, pained, like he’s waiting for Robin to slap him. “I thought you…”

“I do,” Robin says. “Gods, I do, I--” He bites back a mile long list of all the moments he’s longed for Chrom, all the sleepless nights he spent wishing he was beside him, all the times Chrom smiled at him, that infuriatingly sweet and boyish smile that ground his thoughts to dust. “But this-- this is bigger than us. We’re at war. I’m your tactician and you’re leading the army. Don’t you think--” Chrom’s faltering expression, the fear in his eyes, all of it brings Robin’s words to a halt. His mouth feels dry and he can’t find any will to continue speaking.

“Robin.” Chrom takes Robin’s face in his hands, looks at him with all the sincerity in the world. He brushes his thumb over Robin’s cheekbone and takes a deep breath. “I love you. I--” His eyes flicker away for a moment, uncertainty crossing his features. “If you don’t love me, say it. If you don’t want to be with me, I’ll accept your feelings. But don’t…” Chrom takes a slow, steady breath before making eye contact with Robin. “Don’t hold back because of what others might say. I don’t want to die thinking about what could have been.”

Robin doesn’t hesitate. He kisses him, rough, desperate, pushing Chrom back against the wall of the barracks. He needs this, needs Chrom’s breath in his lungs, needs Chrom’s fingers in his hair, Chrom’s love locked away in his heart. Someday it might come back and bite them, might get them in trouble, get them killed. In this moment, he’s too lovesick to care, his worries drifting further away with every touch of Chrom’s steady hands.

\---

“Why?”

Magic still sizzles on Robin’s fingertips, like hot electricity. It sends tingles up his arms, but his chest feels cold and heavy. The world around him is already blurring, already smudging around the edges like a destroyed painting.

Chrom’s eyes are glossy with tears as he grabs Robin’s shoulders, shakes him with waning strength. “Why?” There’s blood on his cheek, a painful gash in his side, but his attention is solely on Robin, a spotlight Robin doesn’t think he can bear. “Why? You promised!”

The guilt might kill Robin before anything else, might make him waste his last moments crying like a fool. He knows better, knows he made the right decision. Every piece of him, down to every screaming synapse in his brain hates himself in that moment, hates himself for hurting Chrom after he’s already suffered so much. Chrom saved him when he was nobody, loved him when Robin tried to push him away, put kisses on his mouth and a ring on his finger and believed every pretty lie Robin had been feeding him for weeks. It was unspeakably unfair for things to end like this.

“I had to.” Robin knows he speaks the truth, but the words still feel wrong coming out of his mouth, feel cruel. He reaches out for Chrom when he comes near, but fear grips his heart when he realizes he can’t feel Chrom smooth down his hair, or brush away tears he didn’t realize he’d been crying.

“No. No. I could’ve--”

Robin wants to kiss Chrom, but his body won’t obey him. He’s powerless as Chrom chokes out a sob, tries to take his hand but comes up with only dust left behind on his palms. Robin wants to feel the warmth of Chrom’s lips, wants to feel the flutter in his chest he feels when Chrom smiles at him, wants to feel like he’s home. He wants to say something, anything that would make Chrom happy, that could give him the slightest relief from his pain, but there is nothing to be done now.

“I’ll find you,” Robin murmurs. He’s somewhere between reality and another place, the world blurring into nothing as Chrom fades from his vision. He’s dreaming of Ylissean wheat fields in September, a sunset as red as fire, Chrom’s fingers twined with his. “I’ll find you somewhere better. Things will be different. I promise.”

“Robin!” Chrom’s voice sounds like a faraway whisper. Robin feels warmth, like the sun’s rays on his shoulders, like a childhood home he can’t remember, like the arms of a mother he’d long since forgotten. He feels like starlight, and then he feels nothing.

\---

“Robin! Robin? Can you hear me?”

Robin groans, squeezing his eyes shut. Summer sunlight bears down hot on his skin, and every breath he takes smells like cheatgrass and warm earth. A dull ache runs from the base of his skull down his spine.

“Robin?” Chrom’s voice cracks halfway through his name, and Robin opens his eyes.

He remembers a fleet of boats ablaze in the ocean, he remembers a great dragon’s wings engulfing the sky. He remembers Chrom pressing a kiss to his temple, saying, “Promise you won’t leave me.”

Chrom opens his mouth and closes it again. “Do you remember me?” His eyes are weary and filled with tears, his hair a little longer than Robin remembered.

Robin sits up quickly and nearly headbutts Chrom, makes himself dizzy from the sudden movement. Chrom’s cheeks are warm under his searching, curious fingertips, Chrom’s eyes wide and blue. “Chrom.” His voice comes out as a strained whisper. “You’re…” His words die in his throat, his thoughts slowing to a halt. He feels suspended in air, held up by euphoria and terror, the nagging question in the back of his head asking ‘How long was I gone?’

Chrom cracks a smile, tears spilling from his eyes. “I knew I’d find you,” he says, his voice as fragile as glass. “I knew you…”

Robin kisses him, takes Chrom’s face roughly in his hands. Chrom’s skin is warm under his hands, tears dripping onto Robin’s fingers. He smells like home in a way Robin can’t explain, feels like home in a way that makes his heart swell with emotion. 

Chrom leans back, gives himself just enough space to cover his face with his hands and let out a stifled sob. 

“I’m sorry,” Robin chokes out, his voice coming out rough, sounding foreign to his own ears. “I’m so sorry Chrom, gods, I’m--” Chrom trembles as Robin pulls him into his arms, strokes his hair. He feels dizzy with worry, sick with guilt. He had to do what he did, but that doesn’t mean it was fair.

“You’re back,” Chrom says, his voice muffled against Robin’s shoulder. “You’re home.” He puts his arms around Robin and holds him tightly, as if Robin could slip from his grasp, could fade into sunlight, into dust.

“I’m home,” Robin repeats, his own eyes burning with the sting of fresh tears. He presses a kiss to the top of Chrom’s head. “I’m home.”

**Author's Note:**

> I started this fic in December of last year and it took me until September to finish it. Kill me. I've been nitpicking at it for so many months that at this point I don't even remember how the original writing process went, RIP.
> 
> Please let me know what you think! I sincerely appreciate every kudo, comment and bookmark that I recieve, it means the world and keeps me going!
> 
> Tumblr: shotdunyun  
> Twitter: owainfucker69


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